Mao Tse-Tung and Karl Marx

Karl Marx believed that in an industrialized society, the working class, known as the proletariat would revolt and take over the ruling class, and would in effect, create a classless society. Karl Marx believed this could only happen in an industrialized society. Once it became apparent that the working class would not rise above, Lenin intervened and confirmed Marxism obsolete in Russia. Since the late 1920's the Chinese Communist Party has altered Marxism in China. It became a peasant party with an anti-Marxist petty-bourgeois viewpoint and through all the fluctuations of the left and right turns of world Stalinism, it kept a utopian and reactionary perspective; in Marxist terminology, reactionary refers to people whose ideas might appear to be socialist, but, in essence, contain elements of feudalism, capitalism, nationalism, fascism or other characteristics of the ruling class. It kept a nationally based and classless socialism, or "peasant socialism,” as worded by Trotsky. To call Mao Tse-Tung’s communist or Maoist, philosophy socialism is an understatement. Though encompassing many Marxist values, China has done a more effective job of forcing the Maoist agenda through more ruthless violence by utilizing the multitude of peasants residing within its borders as a powerful force, unlike Marxism which calls for a series of revolution by means of class struggle and uprising in the proletariat. Though the Maoist ideology had subsisted in China for some years after his time, today it is an important economic force, but is government-run, leaving it unstable without government regulation as the economy is dominated by large state-owned enterprises, but private enterprises also play a major role in the economy. State-owned enterprises are a major source of profit and power for members of the Communist Party of China and their families and are largely favored by the government.

Karl Marx wove economics and philosophy together to construct a grand theory of human history and social change. His concept of alienation, for example, first expressed in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, plays a key role in his criticism of capitalism. Marx believed that people, by nature, are free, creative beings who have the potential to totally transform the world. But he observed that the modern, technologically developed world is apparently beyond our full control. Marx condemned the free market, for instance, as being “anarchic,” or ungoverned. He maintained that the way the market economy is coordinated—through the spontaneous purchase and sale of private property dictated by the laws of supply and demand—blocks our ability to take control of our individual and collective destinies. Marx condemned capitalism as a system that alienates the masses. His reasoning was like this: although workers produce things for the market, market forces, not workers, control things. People are required to work for capitalists who have full control over the means of production and maintain power in the workplace. Work, he said, becomes degrading, monotonous, and suitable for machines rather than for free, creative people. In the end, people themselves become objects—robot-like mechanisms that have lost touch with human nature, that make decisions based on cold profit-and-loss considerations, with little concern for human worth and need. Marx concluded that capitalism blocks our capacity to create our own humane society. Marx’s notion of alienation rests on a crucial but shaky assumption. It assumes that people can successfully abolish an advanced, market-based society and replace it with a democratic, comprehensively planned society. Marx claimed that we are alienated not only because many of us toil in tedious, perhaps even degrading, jobs, or because by competing in the marketplace we tend to place profitability above human need. The issue is not about toil versus happiness. We are...

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

...﻿BIOGRAPHY MAOTSE-TUNGMaoTse-Tung was a principal Chinese Marxist theorist, a soldier and a statesman who commanded China’s communist revolution. He was the leader of the Chinese Communist Party from 1935; he was chairman of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 until his death on 1959.
Mao was born in a farming community in Hunan Province, China to a peasant family. As a child, he worked in the fields and attended a local primary school where he studied traditional Confucian classics. He was frequently in conflict with his authoritarian father. He briefly served in the republican army while regularly studying alone in the provincial library.
He established connection with intellectual radicals who later figured prominently in the Communist Party of China (CPC). He later returned to Hunan where he engaged in militant political activity, while living as a primary-school principal
Mao became the CPC leader at the Hunan branch. He worked within the united front in Shanghai, Canton and Hunan focusing on labor organization, propaganda and the Peasant Movement Training Institute.
In 1927, Chiang Kai-Shek purged all communists from the government. As a result, Mao was forced to flee and live in the mountains of South China and connecting with the guerilla army. The fusion of communist leadership and the guerilla force resulted to...

...Zachary Lee
6/27/2013
MaoTse-Tung: The People’s Emperor
“From Cold War to Global Terror”
MaoTse-Tung: The People’s Emperor
MaoTse-Tung is undeniably one of China’s most prominent historical figures. Born in 1893 into a wealthy family, Mao had a Confucian upbringing, while receiving new, western style schooling in high school. After a brief stint in the revolutionary army from 1911 to 1912, Mao enrolled at Peking University, where he was first introduced to the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism. Mao adopted the ideas of communism into the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. Despite having a complicated, and ultimately mutinous relationship with the Nationalist Party and its leader, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao rose to power in 1949 when the People’s Liberation Army forced Chiang out of the country to form the People’s Republic of China. Upon taking control of the new administration, Mao originally tried to organize production into small communes during an initiative called the Great Leap Forward in 1957, promising to let “a hundred flowers bloom” as flaws in the system were pointed out by loyal intellectuals. However, after economic output and welfare conditions plummeted after the implementation of the Great Leap Forward, Mao put a de facto cap on the rising criticism...

...Few people in history deserve sole credit for changing the fate of an entire nation. One of them is MaoTse-tung, the man who rose from the peasantry to become the pre-eminent revolutionary theorist, political leader and statesman of Communist China (CNN, 2001). MaoTseTung was born on December 1893 in a village of Shaoshan in Hunan Province (China's south). His family is wealthy peasant farmers. He has one sister and two younger brothers. Mao lives with his mother's family in a neighboring village until he is eight. He then returns to Shaoshan to begin his education. When he was 10 he ran away from school. Due to expulsion from school three times, his father refuses to pay fees for his education. At the age of 14 Mao married with an 18 years old cousin of his called Lou, but he never lived with her long because she died at the very young age in 1910. Mao is allowed to resume his schooling. At age 16, and against his father's wishes, he leaves Shaoshan and enrolls in a nearby higher primary school (Wise, 2007). It is during this period that his political consciousness begins to develop. (Wise, 2007). It is during this period that his political consciousness begins to develop. In this essay I will be discussing MaoTseTung idea & thinking.
In 1937, Japanese invasion forced the CCP & Kuomintang once again...

...One basic tenet Karl Marx's defines in his famous Manifesto of the Communist Party is the distinguishing characteristics of two opposing social classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie also known as the “capitalist” are the ones who own the means of production. Because of their wealth, they also have the power to control pretty much everything. The proletariat known as the “workers” do not own nor have any control of the means of production but earn money from the bourgeoisie by providing their labor for very little money.
How is the proletariat held in subjugation? Well the bourgeoisie has ownership of the mean of production, class consciousness because the proletariats worked too hard that they had no social relationship with each other and religion. The proletariats used religion to more or less forget their problems.
When it comes to the value of commodities, Marx introduced three evaluating commodities: use, exchange, and surplus value. The use value is a direct relationship between you and a product. For example, a cup holds water so you can have a drink. The exchange value is anything that has a direct value and can be exchanged for other commodities. For example, diamonds have very little usefulness but have a high value in trade for other commodities. The surplus value is the total cost of a manufacture product minus what it costs to produce it. For example, a company makes a car for five thousand dollars but...

...Derperalla
KarlMarx
Born in Prussia on May 5, 1818, KarlMarx is considered to be one of the most influential thinkers of history. Although he was not the type of adolescent his parents had hoped for, he became a notable historian, sociologist, journalist, philosopher, and economist. He explored sociopolitical theories and became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians and the writings of Friedrich Hegel. In 1842, he became the editor of Rheinische Zeitung, a liberal newspaper in Cologne. His socialist writings eventually lead to his expulsion from Germany and France. In 1848, he published The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels and was exiled to London, where he wrote the first volume of Das Kapital. The rest of his life was spent writing and editing manuscripts for additional volumes, which he never completed. Ultimately, his achievement was providing an economic basis for the communist movement (Bussing-Burks 78).
KarlMarx published several books, developed new theories, and made many other significant contributions to society. One of his most famous works was The Communist Manifesto. In this essay, KarlMarx argues that class struggles between the bourgeoisie and proletarians. Marx believed that all property should be publically owned. There would be no government, and...

...KarlMarx
Life:
KarlMarx was a German philosopher, sociologist, economic historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. He was born on May 5 1818 in a town located in the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine. During his childhood, he was privately educated until 1830, then he entered Trier High School, whose headmaster Hugo Wyttenbach was a friend of his father. In 1835, KarlMarx aged seventeen, began to attend the University of Bonn, where he wished to study philosophy and literature. But he was able to avoid military service when he turned eighteen because he suffered from a weak chest.
From considering an academic career, Marx turned to journalism. He moved to the city of Cologne in 1842, where he began writing for the radical newspaper Rheinische Zeitung, where he expressed his increasingly socialist views on politics. On June.19 1843, KarlMarx married Jenny von Westphalen after seven year waiting at the Pauluskirche in Bad Kreuznach. On September of 1844, he and Engels began to research the socialist, and soon became best friends. In 1845 Marx and Engels visited the leaders of the Chartists, a socialist movement in Britain, using the trip as an opportunity to study in various libraries in London and Manchester. In 1848, hoping to see the revolution...

...
KarlMarx and Wal-Mart Wage Caps
KarlMarx Is a recognized theorist for his views on the capitalist system, and the inequality that occurs between the capitalist as well as with the wageworkers. Prior to his theory it was never as easily recognized the corruption that was bound to happen between the hard working people striving to survive. Wal-Mart is one of the most publicized companies for there recent decisions made to favor the capitalist class.
KarlMarx believed before any of the economic downfalls took place that it was going to happen from the structure of capitalism. A factor that he finds contributes to the structure of capitalism is the Mode Of Production. Marx states that this is defined as meeting the needs of our existence and it plays a large roll on the organization of society. In the capitalist society there are two different classifications of mankind, the Bourgeoisie and proletariat. The Bourgeoisie are capitalists, also the wealthiest people; while the proletariat are the working class striving to survive. Generally the bourgeoisie have control over the proletariats. They both have a type of species being which they supply to the capitalist society, which is known as their means of existence (Dillon 33-40).
In the capitalist society the only concerns are producing capital to increase profit of companies toward the capitalists. The Bourgeoisie looks...

...|
Max Richardson |
KarlMarx has changed the way we view social classes
|
Research Essay – Line 1 Global Relations: Big Ideas and You, Graeme Hansard |
Introduction
KarlMarx has altered the perception of working men and social classes. Both a scholar and a political activist, Marx addressed political and social issues, and is known for his analysis of history and his prediction for the future of the working class. The interpretations of his theories, particularly those on political economy, have in the course of history generated decades of debate, inspired revolutions and cast him as both devil and angel in political and academic circles.
Early Life
KarlMarx was born in Trier, Germany a small town close to the Luxemburg border. His paternal family were all rabbis and practiced Judaism [2]. Karl’s father Hershel was a lawyer, though when Karl was born, the Mayor of Trier insisted that Karl be baptised as either a Catholic or Protestant. If Hershel has baptised Karl as a Jew he faced having his law accreditation revoked.[2]
Schooling
Karl was privately educated until he reached university. He travelled north, to the city of Bonn and studied law at Bonn University. While Marx was at Bonn, he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, daughter of Baron von Westphalen, a man known for...